It will never happen
by Perelynn
Summary: What if Sandor, too, had a dream?


He heard the old gaga was a witch. Maega, they called her. They said that she could brew poisons that killed you quicker than a dagger and see your morrows in the drop of your blood.

He didn't need to know his morrows, he didn't even need poisons (though he contemplated the idea). But maybe she would be able to do something with his burns.

When he entered, the tent was dark. He was still able to see her though. She didn't look scary at all, old and weak and wrinkled. He was sixteen and he was twice as big as her.

'What do you want?' she grumbled. 'I need some sleep.'  
>'And I need some ointments,' he said defiantly. 'My face is badly burned.'<br>'Come closer,' she said. He stepped forward, careful not to knock anything down.

Her fingers were cold as they traced the old scars on his face. 'There is nothing I can do for you, lad,' she finally said. 'Nothing can cure those burns. Now go away and let me get some sleep.'

Sandor left without a word. It was stupid to come here. Of course the old fraud could do nothing to help him.

That night he had the dream for the first time. He was back to maega's tent. She just told him she had no ointments for him, but he just continued to stand there. And then she took his hand into her cold fingers and tasted his blood.

When he awoke, he couldn't remember all the nonsense she said afterwards. Something about him being a great fighter and a beautiful lady waiting out there for him. He even saw the maiden's face in the dream: young, tender, big-eyed, framed with soft auburn curls.

'Save your pretty tales for the knights,' he barked derisively, there in the dream, yanking his hand off her feeble fingers. 'You must indeed be blind, otherwise you would see my face. No lady would ever want me. Nor that I need them to.'

***  
>When he first saw Sansa Stark, he thought that he knew her from somewhere. But how could he? He never met her before. She spent all her little life in her father's castle. It must be her Tully looks. Then he remembered that the only Tully he ever met was Lysa Arryn, but the girl, blissfully, looked nothing like her aunt.<p>

It was that night when he finally remembered. He drank at earnest at the feast and then passed out the moment he reached his bed. It was that dream again. In there, maega told him he would cherish a passion for a lady, a maid of surpassing loveliness, blue-eyed and auburn-haired. And the lady will choose him to be her knight.

He awoke with a jolt. In the dream, he saw that face again, and suddenly realized _whose _face it was. He couldn't help laughing. She is a child, for Stranger's sake! And a betrothed of his prince. She surely wasn't meant for him.

He couldn't stop glancing at her next day, though. She looked older in his dream, but there was no mistake about this sweet, innocent smile. Beautiful child. And meant for beautiful things to happen to her. Marriage to a crownprince, the crown itself. By gods, she was not even aware he was _there_.

***  
>He was telling himself he was acting like an idiot because of the dream, but it was a lie. He grew to care about Sansa Stark. That dream was stupid, but she was alive and lovely and alone and so <em>sad<em>... And she looked more like a woman now. She was getting taller, her breasts were budding. He tried not to think about it.

And she was always courteous, a proper little lady. It gave him morbid satisfaction to tell her again and again that he was no knight. She didn't seem to mind however. She talked to him, not in the usual chirping tones she was giving everybody around, but as if she trusted him. She told him he was awful once. He was amused to hear such a discourteous truth from her, but it also made him mad for some reason.

And, of course, she could never bear a look at his face.

***  
>It ended the way it was expected to end, he thought fiercely, while his hands were skillfully digging yet another grave. He offered to take her away, but she refused. She closed her eyes, unable to look at him. She didn't want him.<p>

But, against his will, the memories rose in his head. How she put her little hand on his shoulder, comforting him after he told her about the worst event of his life. She was the only person who ever comforted him since his sister died. And she touched his cheek the night of Blackwater's Battle, after he took the song from her. The dream promised she would care for him. Stupid dream. Why doesn't it leave him alone? Everything is over now. He'll never see her again. He's not going to leave the Quiet Isle.

Not yet.


End file.
